Refuge in a Lightning Storm
- July 24, 2026
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- Jan Swan Wood
Posted in: Featured, Ranch Life
The summer before my freshman year of high school, I was riding on some cattle on the Klingler Range that bordered my family’s ranch. I started riding on summer range cattle when I was 12, on that very piece of ground. The deal was that I had to keep all the riding, including daily bog lines, on the home ranch done and then ride on the outside cattle. I had made that work for several years.
On this particular summer day, a thunderstorm had been building up in the west. I’d kept my eye on it as I finished checking the cattle in the farthest pasture from home. This pasture was the flattest with only a ridge on one end breaking up its tabletop appearance. It was long and narrow and as that storm started
boiling up and flashing with lightning, I sure wanted out of that pasture, so I hit a lope toward the west end. The next pasture to the west had some deep draws that I could get off into and not be the highest
point on the prairie.
My horse Classy was fit as a racehorse and that mile plus lope wasn’t going to hurt him, so we hustled right along. We got to the fence and I got us through the gate and got back on. By this time the lightning
was flashing and thunder crashing all around us. The wind had come up with a hard rain, so it was kind of
woolly.
It was sure a relief to get off that flat and into a deep draw that ran parallel to the fence. I got off my horse down in that draw. That was as good as it was going to get, so Classy and I turned our backs to the
wind and rain with me praying we wouldn’t get struck by lightning. I don’t know if Classy was praying or not, but we stood in unity and would die together if we did.
We were about half a mile from a county road that bordered the south end of the range. I couldn’t see the road from down in the draw and with the wind and rain, couldn’t hear anyone on it either. As Classy
and I stood there, humped up and the rain pounding on us, I thought I heard a horn honk. I looked up but
couldn’t see anything but rain and lightning. Pretty soon I heard it again and it was closer.
Then, breaking into view was my folks’ pickup, driving along the fence line headed north. Whoever was driving it kept honking the horn, and I figured they we looking for me. I waved my arms and must have been spotted about the same time as the pickup turned toward me and pulled up just above us in the draw.
It was my mom in the pickup. I hurriedly led my horse up out of the draw and climbed into the cab,
holding my reins out the window. I was sure surprised, as Mom wasn’t at all familiar with the Klingler
Range as she didn’t ride at all and had never been out into the pastures.
However, I had told her where I was going to be riding, as was the custom in our family. She knew I’d be riding the Tower Pasture cattle last and then would head home through the pasture with the big draws in it. She’d come through the gate off of the county road and driven rapidly down the fence, hoping to spot me amidst the lightning and the rain.
She sure was relieved to find me still alive, and we stayed right there until the storm passed. I’ll never get over the surprise of my Mom coming to look for me in a big piece of country she didn’t know at all. If I’d ever doubted she loved me, that dispelled my doubts completely. And yes, of course she scolded me for worrying her. Once the storm was well away, I got back on Classy and rode home and she went back to the county road and went home.
Ironically, the very next summer, Classy got struck by lightning while turned out in the horse pasture. He was with other horses so it’s a wonder it didn’t kill more than one. I was sure a broken-hearted girl, losing the horse that I’d bought as a colt and started riding when he was a three-year-old. In retrospect, I’m sure glad that it didn’t happen on the Klingler Range the day Mom came looking for us. We’d have died together but Mom may have been the one to find us.
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Posted in: Featured, Ranch Life
About Jan Swan Wood
Jan was raised on a ranch in far western South Dakota. She grew up horseback working all descriptions of cattle, plus sheep and horses. After leaving home she pursued a post-graduate study of cowboying and dayworking in Nebraska, New Mexico, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota....